Class
of 80 | It was embarrassment that drove Edward Lawler Jr. C80
to investigate the strange situation of the Presidents House in Philadelphia.
He was giving a tour of the Independence Hall area to a relative about
five years ago, and after explaining that Philadelphia had been the
nations capital in the 1790s, he pointed out Congress Hall (where
the House of Representatives and Senate met) and Old City Hall (where
the U.S. Supreme Court met). The young man listened, then asked where
the equivalent of the White House had been.

I
turned around and pointed to the ladies restroom next to the Liberty
Bell Pavilion, and told him I thought it had stood there, says Lawler,
who prided himself on his knowledge of local history. But it seemed
odd that I didnt know this for sure, that so important a building
and site had been forgotten.

The details of its commemoration are still being hashed out, but the
fact that it is being commemorated at all is due largely to Lawler,
the Independence Hall Associations historian, who has invested countless
hours into making the memory historically accurate.

Few buildings in America had the historical pedigree of the Presidents
House, which stood on the south side of Market (then known as High)
Street, a block north of Independence Hall. Built in 1767 (and rebuilt
in 1781 by Revolutionary financier Robert Morris), the handsome, four-story
brick edifice was both the residence and executive mansion of the
nations first two Presidents. George Washington lived there from
November 1790 until March 1797, and presided over State dinners on
Thursdays and public levees (audiences) on Tuesday afternoons. Living
with him was his wife Martha and their white servantsand eight of
their slaves, who were periodically rotated out of the state to
avoid Pennsylvanias anti-slavery law. Two escaped during their time
in Philadelphia, and Washington signed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
into law while living in the house. That law, notes Lawler, gave
teeth to the provisions of the Constitution which protected slavery,
and had a chilling effect on the lives of the one-fifth of the American
population which was of African descent.

Native Americans enjoyed a slightly warmer welcome there, at least
on one occasion. In a 1794 diary entry, John Quincy Adams described
a reception given to a group of Chickasaw Indians by Washington, who
joined them in smoking from a large East Indian pipe.

Three years later, Adams father, John, was elected the nations second
president, and he and (sometimes) his wife Abigail lived there from
late March of that year until May 1800. It was in the Presidents
House in December 1799 that they received the Senate in a Body with
a sympathetic address mourning the death of Washington.

There were other famous residents of the housewhich, before the Revolution,
was owned by Richard Penn, grandson of William Penn and the brother
of Thomas Penn, who helped fund the College of Philadelphia. One was
British General William Howe, who lived there during the occupation
of Philadelphia. Another was Major General Benedict Arnold, who made
the house his residence and headquarters after the British evacuated
the city in June 1778; it was there that he began his treasonous correspondence
with the British.

The house was converted into a hotel in 1800, and on November 10 of
that year, Abigail Adams stayed there en route to the new capital
in the District of Columbia. She wrote to her sister: Though the
furniture and arrangment (sic) of the House is changed I feel more
at home here than I should any where else in the city, and I can
scarcly (sic) persuade myself that tomorrow I must quit it, for an
unknown & unseen abode. That would be the White House.

The house was gutted in 1832, and the memory of it faded. Though its
side walls stood until the 1950s, the size, shape, and exact location
had long been blurred by the conjectures of amateur historians.

In the 1930s, a WPA [Works Progress Administration] project assigned
more than 40 peoplehistorians, researchers, architects, woodworkersto
create a model of the Presidents House. The idea was to generate
enough interest to rebuild it, full-sized, in the proposed Independence
National Historical Park.

Unfortunately,
says Lawler, the WPA researchers really blew it. Though they created
a gorgeous, carefully detailed model, it was of a fictional five-bay
house that had been conjured up by a 19th-century amateur historian.
To add insult to injury, the WPA somehow missed the fact that the
four-story side walls of the house were still standing, right there
in front of everyone.

A rebuilt Presidents House could have become as familiar a sight
(and a site) as the Governors Palace in Williamsburg, Lawler adds
wistfully. Instead, a public toilet was built atop the footprint
of the house.

Fast-forward again to the late 1990s. A month after Lawler gave that
eye-opening tour to his relative, Independence National Historical
Park began a series of public meetings about the proposed changes
to Independence Mall, which included a new Visitors Center, a new
home for the Liberty Bell, and the National Constitution Center [The
House That Joe Built, November/December]. Lawler was one of three
citizens who urged that the Presidents House be commemorated in some
fashion.

The
Parks response was unenthusiastic (to say the least), so I decided
to begin researching it on my own, he recalls. It started as a puzzle,
to figure out just exactly what the Presidents House had looked like
when Washington and Adams occupied it, hoping that the work would
help Independence Park to commemorate the house. I have a big collection
of Philadelphia books from my father and grandfather, both Penn grads,
and the more research I did on the house the more confusing things
became.

The efforts to establish the truth and commemorate the Presidents
House and its early inhabitants can be found on the Independence Hall
Associations Web site (www.ushistory.org/ presidentshouse). But at
least there is a consensus that the footprint of the house should
be outlined in the paving of the entrance plaza to the Liberty Bell
Center, and that the eight slaves will be commemoratedthough exactly
how remains under discussion.

If its been an often-frustrating project for Lawler, its also been
enormously rewarding.

The
most satisfying aspect of the project has been reconstructing the
lives of the eight enslaved African Americans who Washington brought
to Philadelphia to work in the presidential household: Giles, Paris,
and Austin, who worked in the stables; Hercules, who was the primary
cook, and his son, Richmond, who helped in the kitchen; Moll, who
cared for Martha Washingtons two grandchildren; Christopher Sheels,
who was Washingtons body servant; and Oney Judge, who was Marthas
body servant, says Lawler. In the past, theyve been largely a list
of names; Ive tried to gather personal anecdotes and biographical
information to help turn them back into real people.

The moving story of Oney Judges escape to New Hampshireand Washingtons
requests to have her seized and returned can be found on the Web
site, as can thumbnail sketches of the other slaves. The site also
features a number of letters and memoirs written by visitors to the
house.

From
the first, I realized that the story of the house had to be told through
first-person accounts at the site, says Lawler. Thousands of people
visited the house in the 1790s, and I was certain that many would
have written home about what it was like to attend a State dinner,
or a presidential audience, which were called levees. There
is also the correspondence of the people who lived in the house, especially
Washington and his chief secretary, Tobias Lear, and John and Abigail
Adams, who were extensive writers.

Asked if hed ever wanted to go back and tweak history a little, Lawler
responds: Oh, yeah. Id like to go back to the 1930s, correct the
WPAs colossal mistakes, and shout the opposite of what Reagan said
to Gorbachev: Dont tear down these walls!S.H.